nbc's katy tur, thank you for that report. i want to now bring in an associate professor of economics at umass. he also penned "the new york times" op-ed "the minimum we can do." he says, while we can set a wage floor using policy, should we, or leave it to the market. thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> so i wanted to start, one of the things i thought was interesting in your op-ed is you talk about the fact we used to have a variety of mechanisms for setting the wage. it wasn't just up to employers. some of those mechanisms have gone away over time. explain that. >> yeah, for most of the post-world war ii era, wages in the u.s. were set using a combination of things like the minimum wage as well as collective bargaining, unions, who actually used to help set wages together with employers. that is not the case today. unions and the private sector have virtually disappeared in many parts of the country. that's what makes the fast food strike quite interesting. for the first timetime, really, have had peo